Emergent Literacy Design

Rationale: This lesson will help
children identify /t/, the phoneme represented by T. Students will learn to recognize /t/ in spoken words by learning
a meaningful representation (tick-tock of a clock) and the letter symbol T,
practice finding /t/ in words, and apply phoneme with /t/ in phonetic cue
reading by distinguishing rhyming words from beginning letters.

Procedures: 1. Say: Today we will be learning about the letter /t/. We
will learn that /T/ and /t/ both make
the same sound. We will learn today that when we say words, our mouths
move as we say each letter sound. We are going to work on spotting how the mouth moves when we
say /t/. When the second hand moves on a clock, it makes the sound tick
tock, or t t t t.

2. Let's
pretend we are looking at a clock, /t/, /t/, /t/. Notice what your tongue does?
When we say /t/, our tongue starts out at the roof of our mouth and air pushes
it off.

3. Let me
show you how to find /t/ in the word shift. I'm going to stretch shift
out in slow motion and listen for the /t/ sound a clock makes:
shh-i-i-ift. Now slower: shhh-i-i--fff-tttt. There it was! I felt my
tongue touch the roof of my mouth and air push it down. I can hear the clock
tick /t/ in shift.

4. Now let's
try a tongue twister [on chart]. "Tim the tiger tasted
two types of treats."
Let’s say it together three times. Now say it again, and this time, stretch the
/t/ at the beginning of the words. "TTTTim the tttttiger ttttasted
ttttwo tttypes of ttttreats."
Try it again, and this time break it off the word: “/T/im
the /t/iger /t/asted /t/wo /t/ypes of /t/reats.”

5. [Have students take out primary
paper and pencil]. We use letter T to spell /t/. Capital T looks like an
upside broom. Let's write the lowercase letter t. Start just below
the rooftop then draw a straightened line all the way down to the sidewalk.
Then cross it at the fence. I want to see everybody's t. After I
put a sticker on your paper, I want you to make nine more t’s just like the first one.

6. Call on
students to answer and tell how they knew: Do you hear /t/ in hot or cold?
finger or toe? black or white? Lift or drop?
Stiff or sore? Say: Let's see if you can spot the mouth move /t/
in some words. Do a clock movement with your finger if you hear the /t/ sound
in the words: tilt, fast, kick, tap, bird, fast, to, green, out, cup.

7. Say:
"Let's look at an alphabet book. Dr. Seuss uses a tongue tickler to name things
that start with T. Read page 46, stressing /t/. Can you think
of any items that you use at school whose names start with the letter t? Write
the name of the item and draw a picture of it. Then I will display the
students’ work.

8. Show TOP
and model how to decide if it is top or mop: The T tells
me to think of the tick tock of a clock, /t/, so this word is ttt-op, top.
You try some: TAP: tap or lap? TON: ton or won? TAME: tame or lame? TAIL: tail
or pail? TOAD: toad or mode?

9. For
assessment, I will hand out the worksheet. Students are asked to draw
lines connecting the pictures that begin with the letter /t/. I will call on students
individually to read the phonetic cue words from step #8.